Here we are in No Man’s Land.
No work, no school. If there is work — for a lot of the jobs anyway — it’s probably an easy day.
Why, even clubs and civic organizations give us time off now.
This last week of the calendar year is something special. Time between Christmas and New Year’s is suspended. Everything feels different.
If you work an office job, there are fewer emails, fewer phone calls, an easy deadline or no deadline at all. No one dares set a meeting or require professional development training this week.
For people whose lives include working, participating in clubs or civic groups and hauling kids to and from extracurricular activities, this time between holidays is a rare opportunity to be home in the evenings.
The tremendous value of being home in the evenings after what feels like an eternity of running from one thing to another cannot be overstated.
And this year, we have that half-in, half-out-of-the-daily-grind feeling for two straight weeks.
Both holidays fall on Wednesdays, so for two straight weeks, our daily grind is interrupted smack in the middle of the week.
You go to work for a day or two, then off, then back for a day or two, but then off again for the weekend, then back, but just for a day and a half or so, then off again, then back just for two days before it’s the weekend again.
Isn’t it sort of a rip-off when Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on the weekend? I mean, sure, yeah, in that case they give you a Friday off or a Monday off, but it’s just not the same.
A 3-day weekend does not bring you close to the enchantment you felt as a kid during the Christmas break from school as you can sometimes feel with these mid-week interruptions.
The worst is when the holidays fall on Sundays, such as in 2022. It was Christmas Eve then New Year’s Eve on the Saturdays, and Christmas and New Year’s on Sundays. Sure, for many of workers Monday was a day off work, but that just turns it into a couple of 3-day weekends in a row, not two weeks of magic.
But, yes, for holiday-week lovers, we are enjoying the best-case scenario.
Enjoy!
